Staff testing one of the tablets at a treatment centre in Sierra Leone.

Device promises to improve medical care in West Africa

Technology volunteers have developed an 'Ebola-proof' tablet device, which promises to improve medical care and save lives.

Medical staff working in West Africa were having to shout basic patient notes to colleagues over a fence, as even a piece of paper leaving the high-risk Ebola zone posed a risk of infection.

As well as wasting precious time, dictating notes across a fence while wearing a mask is a recipe for errors. Such basic notes did not provide medics with enough information to analyse a patient's condition over time.

When Ebola peaked in September last year, Médecins Sans Frontières appealed for help in coming up with a way for medics to record patient notes. A team of tech volunteers came together and were later joined by Google. They developed the waterproof tablet, which can be dropped in chlorine, sterilised and safely taken out of the high-risk zone.

The device can be recharged by placing it on a table, as the sharp edge on normal wire-based chargers could puncture gloves, thereby posing an infection threat.

"We had to put on full personal protective equipment to understand how difficult it was for doctors working in the high-risk zone," explained Ganesh Shankar, product manager for Google.

"We wanted to make sure the tablets would be as simple and as safe as possible to use. We got rid of all the sharp edges, pre-configured the technology so that it could be taken out of the box and used, and spent time thinking about the extreme environments that MSF staff often work in."

The tablets also allow medics to track a patient's progress by offering more complete data, including pulse and respiration rates.

MSF's Ivan Gayton, who developed the project, said: "In the longer term, if we are able to collect more and better information about our patients, we will also learn more about the disease and how best to treat it.

"Although we have just treated the largest cohort of Ebola patients in human history, we still know distressingly little about the progression of the disease.

"It will take many months to file, organise and analyse the data we have collected. Now that the technology has been developed and successfully trialled, we know that data will be instantly ready for both analysis and patient care in the future."

After a successful trial in MSF's Ebola management centres in Sierra Leone, the tablets are now in use. It is hoped the technology will be adapted for use in other humanitarian emergencies, including cholera outbreaks, nutrition crises and refugee camps.